Friday, June 5, 2020
Not long after daylight I was back on Silver Springs Road resuming my search for Mother Featherlegs. I did finally find her after retracing my route, discovering that I had turned back only a mile or so from her final resting place. The monument is prominently displayed among the stones in one of the tiniest cemeteries I can imagine, and it’s just sitting there next to the gravel road in the middle of nowhere. I suspect the isolated and uncelebrated location is the major factor that has enabled it to survive without graffiti or vandalism over the years, since the current monument was erected in 1964.
A small achievement in the minds of others, I’m sure. But I mentally congratulated myself all the way back home, and still smile when I remember it. In particular that moonlight drive on my solo quest Thursday night. Wish I could do it again. Lusk itself, though pretty ordinary as little towns go in the part of Wyoming, is the Niobara County seat. It’s one other feature I found interesting is – of all things – a quilt shop. Lickety Stitch Quilts is the name of the place, and it is a nationally renowned retailer for all things quilt related. From its modest exterior, I’d never have guessed how spacious, colorful, and inviting the place is. The interior of this store shocked me with a vast array of everything imaginable having to do with quilts from fabric to patterns to books, kits and classes. The proprietor, Karen Wisseman, is a delightful woman who runs a very professional operation there, including a gracious staff. I know nothing about quilting, but heard about this place from one of my travel magazines and thought I’d check it out while in Lusk. Amazing place! If you or someone you love is into quilting, you should hop online and take a look for yourself. www.licketystitchquilts.com. It’s located at 206 South Main Street in Lusk. If you visit in person, a non-quilt person like me can spend a very pleasant half hour poking around. A quilting enthusiast would be there for hours!
Next, I headed out of Lusk and on toward yet another stagecoach stop, Fort Laramie. But once again, I was exhilarated to find some great opportunities to photograph old, abandoned ranch buildings and vehicles along the way.
Approaching Fort Laramie, I also came across the old US Army bridge over the Platte River which was erected in 1875. A remarkable architectural feat of utilitarian beauty and durability that also marks the location of Fort Platte, a trading post built in 1851, which has since been claimed by time and the elements. This little diversion is worth a look, and won’t take more than 20 minutes to examine.
As they merge, the Laramie and the North Platte rivers made an ideal spot for the kind of encampment which grew into Fort Laramie. The historic site is located 3 miles southwest of the town of Fort Laramie, Wyoming along US Highway 26. Fort Laramie was first established as a private fur trading post in 1834, and that same year an initial log cabin style stockade was erected there, under the name Fort William. The “William” came from a pair of fur trappers, William Sublette and William Anderson, who established a burgeoning trade with the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes who travelled there to trade buffalo hides. That property was purchased by the American Fur Company in 1841, and then in 1849, when President Polk decided to establish military outposts along the Oregon Trail, the US Army purchased the property now known as Fort Laramie for $4,000. Described as a “crossroads of American expansion,” Fort Laramie watched an overland emigration of settlers along the Oregon trail that peaked at about 50,000 annually in the early 1850s, including the Reed-Donner Wagon Train and the Mormon flight led by Brigham Young. The bulk of buildings there have been replaced again and again over the years. In 1876, President Grant issued an ultimatum to Indians straying from reservations, and set the stage for the Great Sioux War.
Historical figures like Sitting Bull and Red Cloud were contemporaries – sometimes visitors, and sometimes targets of military campaigns launched from the fort. Today, Fort Laramie is a US National Park, purchased and restored beginning in 1938. The Park Service has done a really nice job of placing signage for self-guided tours around the grounds and through the buildings. There are still remnants of many of the old structures comprised of a limestone grout, since limestone was much more plentiful than timber in the area, and they make for an eerie testament to the lives of the men who were posted at Fort Laramie as it evolved. Alongside those ruins, forming a perimeter around the parade ground, are the Commissary Storehouse from 1884, the Old Bakery ruins (1876) and New Bakery (1883), Infantry Barracks ruins (1867), the New Guardhouse (1876), the General Sink ruins (1886), the Two-Company Infantry Barracks ruins (1866), the Old Guardhouse (1866), the Administration Building ruins (1885), the Captain’s Quarters (1870), the Officers’ Quarters ruins (1881), “Old Bedlam” (1849) which was built to hold bachelor officers, and is Wyoming’s oldest documented building, the Officers’ Quarters ruins (1882), the Magazine (1850), the Post Surgeon’s Quarters (1875), The Lt. Colonel’s Quarters (1884), the Post Trader’s Store (1849), the Post Trader’s House foundation (1863), the Cavalry Barracks (1874), and the Hospital ruins (1873). 11 structures are completely restored and refurnished today.
It is 536 acres, and during the summer months the sun is merciless. So, make sure you hydrate and wear appropriate sunny-weather clothing if you plan to see much of the grounds. Imagine, as you walk around, what it must have been like for US Cavalry troopers in wool uniforms and field packs in the open all day and night, day after day. It’s a big slice of American history, and it takes a while to experience and absorb. If you’re a history buff, allow at least half a day to explore the many builds with historic furnishings and static displays. If your interest is less academic and more touristy, a couple of hours in the Wyoming sun will probably sate your appetite for this dry and dusty place, history notwithstanding.
From Fort Laramie, I made the short 20-minute (15 mile) drive to Register Cliff and the Oregon Trail Ruts. I suppose that for many, it seems a little crazy to travel even that distance to see some ruts in the surface of the ground. But for those of us still caught up in the romance of the American West, this is yet another place of legendary importance. More evidence of the sacrifice and endurance – the sheer grit – of the American people. The Oregon Trail Ruts National Monument, also known as “The Guernsey Ruts”, are said to be the best-preserved set of wagon train ruts remaining along the historic Oregon Trail. They are located one half mile south of Guernsey, Wyoming off Highway 26 near the North Platte River. As the US National Park Service reports on their website, the landmark is “a fascinating display of the precise location where pioneers from the 1843 to 1869 crossed the Great American West on their way to Oregon and California.” After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the land mass of the United States was effectively doubled, and adventurers of all types headed west to explore and settle to new territory between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. The first settlers to use what eventually became the “Oregon Trail” was a group known today as “The Astorians” led by fur trader Robert Stewart, who led the first group of white people on a 2,000 mile journey to establish Fort Astoria along the Columbia River near the west coast of Oregon. That journey was 10 months in duration. It was 26 years later, though, in 1836 when the first pioneers opened the flood gates that really began the systematic flow of settlers along the Oregon Trail. Hundreds of thousands of pioneers followed – literally – in their tracks, until those tracks were cut into the face of the earth – into solid limestone – over 6 feet deep in places. In this location, the ruts stretch about a half mile. The Oregon Trail was used almost continuously until it was made obsolete by the completion of the Union Pacific railroad in 1869. The place is quite remarkable. Register Cliff is just 2.5 miles from the Oregon Trail Ruts. It is also a National Historic site, and in this case it’s still evolving.
Register Cliff is chalky 100-foot-tall outcropping of sandstone along the Oregon Trail when people – beginning with the western migration travelers – have been recording their names and dates by scratching them into the surface of the cliff. Thousands engraved their names between 1843 and 1869, but of course most of those are lost now to the erosion of time. Some were making their mark – literally, others were leaving evidence for friends and family following behind, and still others were added as memorials to friends who lost their lives on the journey before they had reached this point. It’s another place where you can actually reach out and touch a piece of history, and if you are as close as Fort Laramie, you owe yourself the experience of seeing Register Cliff and the Oregon Trail Ruts. A visitor can easily see them both in an hour or so, and they are both easy walks.
From the Fort Laramie area, Cheyenne was the last stop for me – and the stagecoach – along the 300-mile Cheyenne-Black Hills Stage & Express Line. The city is more than 32 square miles in size, and its claim to fame these days is that it’s “cowboy central.” Its annual Frontier Days celebration – replete with rodeo, parades, Indian villages, and the like – is famous. The city is the state capital of Wyoming, and has done a beautiful job on monuments to all things cowboy including the Cheyenne Depot and Depot Museum, the Old West Museum, and the Terry Bison ranch. There is a Cheyenne Street Railway Trolley, the Big Boy Steam Engine, the National Museum of the West, an Historic Governor’s mansion, and even a Cowgirls of the West Museum. It seems a little ironic to me that such a big and modern city is themed so heavily on the Old West, but there it is.
Cheyenne strikes me as a clean and friendly place for the most part; still cow town rail yard meets shiny new metropolis. I got the impression that city fathers like it that way. Even their tourism brochures say things like: “Cheyenne beckoned settlers who moved into the flourishing town full of rowdy bars alongside elegant opera houses and theatres.” Honestly, it’s a little too citified for me. A nice place, and a beautiful city. But for me, the real character of the old west and the soul of America are out there on the backroads. I found them in the waterfalls of Spearfish Canyon, the craggy ridges of Needles Highway, and – more than anywhere else – under the glorious burning sunsets along the dusty gravel of Silver Springs Road in Lusk and the Cheyenne-Black Hills Stage Road at Hat Creek.
The first successful trip for the Cheyenne-Black Hills Stage & Express Line was completed on September 25, 1876, and I made it on June 6, 2020. 144 years later, people like me are still examining the evidence of lives filled with adventure and risk and world-changing achievements across the American frontier. I absolutely love it.
On Friday night I started toward home, staying the night in Sidney, Nebraska.